Mikail Eldin - The Sky Wept Fire - My Life as a Chechen Freedom Fighter

News soon arrived of Shamil Basayev’s daring operation in the Russian town of Budyonnovsk. [26] On 14 June 1995 a group of Chechen fighters led by Shamil Basayev crossed into the Stavropol territory in southern Russia and captured the town of Budyonnovsk. They held over a thousand civilians hostage and demanded an end to the war. The operation resulted in a ceasefire and peace talks. The psychological impact of this operation was tremendous. Chechen resistance fighters misread it as a signal from the command authorizing them to operate deep in Russia’s vast heartland. And Russian society awoke to the reality that this was not a war waged in some faraway Chechnya; it was raging in Russia too. And the following day it could come to any town, bringing death and affliction in its wake, unless society could stop it. At that time Russian society still had the power to sway the government when it so desired. Boris Yeltsin, despite his nakedly imperialist agenda, was nevertheless deep down a greater democrat than any other ruler Russia had seen. Basayev’s operation ended with a ceasefire and the start of negotiations, meaning respite for the combatants. But this pause was merely for those fighting: intelligence could not afford to ease off. Intelligence on both sides was hard at work, for where was the guarantee that negotiations would not break down tomorrow and hostilities resume? Within a short time, thanks to the brave agents who infiltrated the enemy, we managed to discover not just the quantity and type of our opponent’s combat hardware, not just the troop strength and types of weaponry along this front, but also the enemy’s plans to expand their offensive. We received confirmation of the accuracy of these reports a year later, when the enemy tried to prolong their assault. I was on my way back from a routine meeting with the commander of our intelligence task force when I committed my blunder. And this blunder would seal my fate. If, as they say, ‘a bomb disposal specialist only ever makes one mistake,’ then I believe in war any mistake is an unaffordable luxury. In war you need to use not just your five senses: you have to know how to listen to your heart, your sixth sense, your intuition, or whatever you want to call it. Failure to listen to your heart can lead to the direst of consequences. One of the many transformations that you undergo in war is the sharpening of your intuition, the ability to scent danger. And you must learn to exploit this truly priceless gift if you wish to survive the abnormal situation that is war.

The forest is nature’s magnificent gift to man. It is the ancient cradle of humankind. The forest can feed you when you are hungry, it can warm you when you are frozen, it can shelter you when you have no roof, and the forest can also provide you with sanctuary in time of war. The great saint of the Chechen nation, Sheikh Kunta-Haji Kishiev, [27] Sheikh Kunta-Haji Kishiev was a peacemaker and Sufi saint, famed throughout the North Caucasus, who opposed the destruction of the Chechen people in the nineteenth-century Caucasian War. He was arrested by the tsarist authorities on 3 January 1864 and exiled for life. taught his murids (disciples): ‘When the forest sees a man with an axe, it starts grieving for its children the trees, who are still living, so hold your axe with your arm lowered. When you chop down a tree, explain to the forest that you act from necessity and ask for forgiveness, then the tree will be blessed. Respect the forest; respect the plant and animal world around you if you wish to respect God. True respect and honour for the Creator comes through respect for His creations. God does not need our Love; it is we who need the Love and Mercy of the Almighty. Remember that the condition, the purity, of our hearts is far more important than our outward demonstrations of faith.’

That great saint and humanist Sheikh Kunta-Haji alone achieved what the Russian Empire in over half a century could not manage – a cessation of hostilities on the part of the Chechen people. Yet for Russia he became the enemy. Or rather, he had been the Empire’s enemy all along, for he had opposed the physical annihilation of his and your people. The Empire wanted your motherland, but free of the people who inhabited that ancient territory. The Empire only dared arrest the saint when, at his bidding, the people had entirely disarmed. And when his disciples then charged, with daggers drawn, into the cannons’ grapeshot in an attempt to win back their Teacher, the great saint, Sufi and fatalist, with his feet now in shackles, stopped them. He did so because he had no desire, no right before God, to win freedom at the price of the lives of his disciples. The sage glimpsed far into the future and when he saw the tragic destiny that lay before his people, he became a martyr, sacrificing himself on the altar of spiritual freedom.

Your childhood was spent close to the forest. The woods began just a hundred metres from the edge of the village and stretched for kilometres. The forest harboured many wild beasts. Now and then they wandered into your village. But you would visit the forest more often than they would come to the village. From earliest childhood you used to listen to the forest. You used to converse with the forest and its inhabitants. The forest does not frighten you. Quite the reverse. You know the forest will protect you.

In the forest you have to become a shadow. You must melt away, merge with the forest. Particularly if there is a war on and you are a participant in that war. You must move without snapping one dry twig underfoot, without rustling last year’s leaf fall, without disturbing the branches or grass. You need to be able to become any tree, bush, hollow or hill, you need to know how to stop smelling like a human if you are to trick the enemy. Your enemy is strong and wily. He too knows how to melt into the forest. He is dangerous. You know it, and that’s why so far you have been lucky. Today you have been lucky. It is a sunny morning in July. You need to cover at least twenty kilometres of your journey before nightfall. You’re carrying important intelligence given to you by your reconnaissance unit. And intelligence is valuable only while it is timely. You know that, and so you’re hurrying. Besides, you also have intelligence of your own – you too are a scout, and no less able than the rest. After spending many hours merging into the shadows of the bushes and gazing through the remaining eyepiece of your binoculars, you’ve discovered the presence and location of two cleverly concealed Hurricane multiple rocket launchers. The firing range of these systems would allow the Russians to attack almost any rebel position on this axis. To do so they would, of course, need competent undercover agents working among the enemy, but they have no trouble recruiting agents. They have at their service large numbers of Armed Opposition soldiers, whose hands are stained with the blood of their own people. You’ve also managed to spot a hidden approach to the Hurricanes that is within range of an RPG-7 launcher. It is quite clear that the Hurricanes need to be taken out, and to this end you have devised a plan. At night, a small group of fighters is to creep up and fire at the Hurricanes with their RPG launchers. To do this there’s no need to enter the mined zone around the Hurricanes, and the more distant approaches to them haven’t been mined – that’s already been verified. Then, without engaging the enemy, the group will escape under cover of fire from a couple of machine guns. There are two areas where there is a risk the escape routes might be blocked, so small ambush units could be left to safeguard the withdrawal of the main group. And, to be on the safe side, you’ve even managed to get the codes of the enemy light signals. You’ve encrypted all this information in a simple numerical code on some small slips of paper which you’ve rolled up and hidden in some antibiotic capsules emptied of powder. You’ve mixed them with genuine capsules and slipped them into the unbuttoned breast pocket of your shirt. You are wearing civilian clothes, which has its advantages. But the main thing compelling you to hurry is the intelligence, later discovered to be incorrect, that one of the delegates in the talks that began a week ago has arrived at headquarters. You urgently need to meet him for an interview. The truth is you are more journalist than scout.